Steam database hacked

The Steam database has been hacked. As some may know, the forums have been down for awhile now, which it turns out was due to an intrusion. We learn now through a message sent to users from Valve founder Gabe Newell the intrusion goes all the way to the database.

The good news is as of now, no known credit card or personal information has been stolen, and no Steam accounts have been hacked, though a few Steam forum accounts have. As such, it's recommended you keep an eye on your credit card activity and also change your account password; forum users will be required to do so.

For those still concerned, the full message is below.

Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users,

Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6. We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.

We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.

We don't have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.

While we only know of a few forum accounts that have been compromised, all forum users will be required to change their passwords the next time they login. If you have used your Steam forum password on other accounts you should change those passwords as well.

We do not know of any compromised Steam accounts, so we are not planning to force a change of Steam account passwords (which are separate from forum passwords). However, it wouldn't be a bad idea to change that as well, especially if it is the same as your Steam forum account password.

We will reopen the forums as soon as we can.

I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

Now I'm glad I never saved my credit card details to "make check out easier".

They still have to save your credit card information to their databases. They can't very well get paid if they have no record of the transaction. Saving the credit card information keeps it recorded locally, on your computer, and it does indeed make it easier if you plan on buying a few things.

Now I'm glad I never saved my credit card details to "make check out easier".

They still have to save your credit card information to their databases. They can't very well get paid if they have no record of the transaction. Saving the credit card information keeps it recorded locally, on your computer, and it does indeed make it easier if you plan on buying a few things.

That's not necessarily true. For instance, if you sign into Neoseeker with Facebook, Neoseeker never knows your password. Only Facebook does. The same can be true with Steam. Steam never knows your password (or credit card number, etc.), The account and transaction information can be sent to the bank, processed, money sent to Valve, without Valve ever knowing what your information is. All Facebook or the bank does is verify that the information is correct. It never gives any third-party the individual's information. Like, for instance, PayPal, or Ebay.